A Moment's Notice
by FriendLey
Summary: Hank and Scott get stuck in a doll house together. Complete.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of its characters and lines from the movie used in this story. What is written here is for entertainment purposes only. I do not make any profits from it.**

Scott rolled the window down, letting Hank see him from the driver's seat of the car.

Hank came forward, poking his head in through the window. "Where's Hope?" He scanned the back of the car, searching for his daughter who was supposed to pick him up.

"She and Janet had to so some last minute Christmas shopping. They sent me." Scott grinned proudly and Hank looked at him a little reluctantly.

"Aw, come on," said Scott, dropping the grin. "I know I'm not nearly as good looking as Janet or as lovely as Hope, but I _am_ around. And you can't drive when you're still on those meds." Scott shook his hands to emphasize the side effects of Hank's medication.

Hank sighed and got in the front seat.

"Yes!" cheered Scott, pressing the horn of his van as he pulled out the driveway of the hospital. The loud trumpet sounds made Hank wince.

They headed out into the road and Scott pulled the red lever, automatically shrinking the van and avoiding the traffic up ahead.

"Whoa, when did this happen?" asked Hank, referring to the change in size. He didn't know that Scott's van could shrink.

And he should know. He alone had the technology to do that.

"Oh, Janet set it up."

Hank wasn't sure he heard it right. "She set it up?"

"Okay, I _asked_ nicely," Scott corrected, "And she gladly set it up."

"Why didn't you ask me?"

Scott fidgeted in his head and avoided looking at the older man's direction. "Well, you weren't around then."

"Where was I?"

"In the lab."

"You mean in the basement? You were up in the kitchen schmoozing my wife while I was in the basement and you couldn't be bothered to take the walk down the stairs to ask me?" It was literally just five steps. How could he not take the five steps and ask?

Scott at least had the decency to look ashamed. "We were in the garage, actually. She said it was okay! And you know, I figured as Ant-Man I should have a shrinkable car, right?"

Hank grumbled but didn't reply. He couldn't very well complain when it was Janet who did it.

"So, how was your checkup?" asked Scott, trying to turn things on a lighter tone. "Everything working?"

Hank kept his eyes on the road. "I got until tonight to continue on these damn pills and then I'm rid of them."

"Great! So, heart's all good? You're not gonna go into cardiac arrest or anything are you?"

Hank smiled at the show of concern. "I'm fine, Scott. I'm healthy."

"Good, good, good," said Scott, "Cause, um, I lied. Hope didn't really ask me to pick you up. I, uh, I offered."

Hank raised an interested brow and looked at Scott. "You offered?" That was interesting.

"Yeah. I… I wanted to talk to you without the girls hearing."

"About?"

"Proposing."

"I'm really flattered, Scott, but I'm happily married."

"Ha ha," Scott said dryly. "I mean about Hope. I'm gonna ask her to marry me and I wanted to tell you about it first. Because as a dad, I'd want to know if Cassie's boyfriend was gonna propose. I mean, I don't wanna be caught off-guard like a deer in headlights."

Hank smirked, hiding the sudden race of his heartbeat at the mention of Scott proposing. "Hope isn't gonna like the fact that you asked my permission."

"Oh, no, no, no. I'm not asking permission. I'm… informing _."_

" _Informing?_ "

"Yeah! Like, a notice. You know, something like 'Mr. Pym, I'd like to formally file a notice of proposal for your daughter's hand in marriage.' Something like that. "

Hank's brows knitted together. Did this man just really file a _verbal_ notice of _proposal?_

"You mean, you're _not_ asking permission?"

"Well, it's not the 19th century anymore, Hank. Nobody asks permission now. They in—"

"Inform, I know," said Hank, grumbling a little.

Scott glanced at his future (hopefully and a little dauntingly) father-in-law. "Wait, I'm sensing a little… dissatisfaction here. Are you… Do you _not_ want me to marry Hope?"

"It's not like whatever _I_ have to say has any weight. You're just _informing_ , right?"

"Oh, okay. You _are_ unhappy. Why? What's wrong with me? I thought we got along! I mean, sure you don't love me, but I thought you respected me. You let me wear the suit for one thing."

"The suit is one thing entirely. Sometimes I have days where I even regret letting you use it. But you marrying Hope?" Hank shook his head. "I can't have room for regret when it comes to her, Scott. I've already regretted a lot."

"Okay, that stings. But this is good! Communication is key! Why don't you tell me what it is you don't like about me and I can work on it so we can have a healthier father-son relationship. See the benefits of informing?"

Hank snorted but decided to go for it. "You're an ex-con."

"Correction: modern-day Robin Hood."

"You revert to crime when things get rough or a little too fun."

"Not true."

"You broke into my house."

"You set me up on that one, so that doesn't count."

"Captain America."

"Okay, I accept full responsibility for that."

They finally pulled into the Pyms' house and Scott parked in the garage. They walked into the back door all the while still arguing over Scott's debatably idiotic life decisions.

"And if something goes bad, I don't want my daughter dealing with the fallout of your actions. You hurt her enough with Germany."

"I apologized for that already. It was an issue of national security!"

"Which became an issue of _our_ security—" Hank halted, looking around the living room. This didn't look like his living room. "This isn't… where are we?"

"What are you talking about?" Scott looked around too. "We're in the house—" His eyes widened. "Oh, no. We're in the doll house!"

"The what?" Hank went to the foyer and reached for the doorknob.

"Hank, don't touch that!"

Too late. The minute Hank's hand went in contact with the doorknob, the house beeped and there was a sound of locks starting to click together.

"Great," mumbled Scott. "You locked us in the doll house!"

"What the hell are you talking about? What doll house?"

Hank fiddled with the doorknob but it didn't budge.

"The doll house is on lockdown," Scott explained.

"What are you talking about?"

Scott sighed. "We're still small."

Hank frowned. "What?"

"We were so busy arguing, we never came back to full size. And we got out of the car and into the doll house I was building for Cassie."

"What?!" Hank cried. He walked over to the windows and peered out of it. True enough, aside from the normal looking van, everything else seemed huge in comparison.

"I built the house to be fully functional and added security."

"Why would you add security to a doll house?" Hank threw his hands up in the air. "It's a doll house!"

"Well, because I'm a superhero and there are people who could be after me and my family! So, I put in some extra measures, one of those being a security lockdown in case someone evil goes sneaking into Cassie's stuff."

"Okay, fine. But why would it lock us in here!? We're not intruders."

"It didn't recognize you. I designed this house to respond to me, Cassie, and Hope." Scott went over to the security panel by the front door. He punched a few numbers and sighed. "We're gonna be stuck here for a while. The lockdown's designed to last for five hours."

Hank's eyes widened and he barked, "Five hours?!"

"Relax. Like I said, I designed this to be a fully functional house. At least we'll be stuck in comfort."

Hank shook his head before turning back to the windows and trying to pry it open.

"That's not gonna work. Those are made from bullet proof glass."

Hank shot Scott a confused look. "Why would you use bullet proof glass on a doll house?"

"What? X-Con had extra glass! I wasn't gonna shell out 100 bucks for a pane of normal glass. Come on, Hank. Think a little."

Hank rolled his eyes. "Why is this house even in my garage?"

"Where else was I gonna keep it? Cassie was going to find it in my place otherwise. Besides, at least this way, Janet didn't need to make the trip."

Hank stared at him, his hands starting to tremble at the stress he was going through. "What does my wife have to do with this?"

"Oh, she designed the place. That and she provided the serum to tiny-fy the things."

Hank gaped. "You took my serum and made a doll house?"

Scott stepped back. "Janet said it was fine."

"You went over my head… _again_ … and asked my wife? Where was I? In the shower?!"

"Well, to be honest, I ask Janet these things because she always says yes and she loves Cassie."

Hank paused to breathe. If he was going to be stuck with Scott Lang in a doll house for five hours, he needed to practice a little restraint.

"My meds are outside, Scott," Hank reminded him. "We need to get out of here."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking." Scott turned on his heels and walked up the staircase. "I might be able to bypass the code."

"Where are you going?"

"We're stuck here. Might as well break this house in. Wanna start with the bedroom?"

They reached the bedroom and Hank realized this room was actually a nursery.

Scott opened the tool box which was right on the changing table. "Thankfully, I still have the tool box in here. I was assembling the crib two days ago."

Hank looked at the still incomplete crib in the center of the room.

"Janet has it all picked out. Said this could be the nursery for Cassie's baby dolls. I told her Cassie didn't have baby dolls and then she said she was getting Cassie some for Christmas."

Hank had to give it to Scott Lang. One thing he admired about the man was his adoration and dedication in being a dad.

But Hank wasn't going to tell him that.

Scott got a screwdriver and a wrench and then they went back downstairs to the security panel.

Scott pried open the panel and then proceeded to yank out some wires.

"Careful!" Hank hissed.

"I have a masters in engineering, Hank. I know what I'm doing."

Hank made some sort of sound.

Scott turned to him. "Did you just judge-grunt?"

Hank shook his head, lips pursed.

"Yeah, you did." Scott abandoned the panel and turned to Hank, hands folded across his chest. "What does that grunt even mean?" Scott repeated the grunt. "What does that—is that like the Pym grunt of disapproval? Is that what Hope meant when she said you always sounded disappointed?"

"You're reading too much into a grunt."

"No, I'm not! You grunted. Therefore, you wanted to say something, probably something about my skills and intelligence and worthiness to marry Hope. And we're stuck here so, you might as well tell me what you hate about me so much!"

Hank sighed. This was getting way out of hand. "Frankly, Scott, I think—"

"That Hope could do a lot better. Yeah. I think about that too. And I'm a lucky bastard. Do you know how hard it is to find an amazing woman like that, a smart one too, and have her actually like me? I know I don't deserve her. I know she could do a whole lot better than my ex-con ass. But for some reason, Hope attracts all the idiots and I'm the major idiot she fell for. So, thanks for the vote of confidence here, Hank. It really isn't messing up my self-esteem and my ability to break us out of here when you grunt around me."

Hank's look softened and he had to admit that he wasn't being very cordial to Scott today. The whole proposal thing threw him off.

Scott raked a hand through his hair. "You know, I really wanted to talk today, ask you for advice on how to proceed with the proposal because you may know some stuff about Hope that I still don't. And I know you don't like me but I thought we could at least get along for her sake. I know I'm not the best guy, husband-wise but I do love your daughter and I'm gonna marry her if that's what's going to add to her happiness. I'll do it with or without your unasked approval."

Hank took a good gulp of _'aah, screw it'_ and said, "I was gonna say that you're good for her."

Scott shook his head, "What?"

"You heard me. You're good for her. You think a lot with your heart than with your head, Scott, and Hope needs some of that. You let yourself get swept away by the excitement and the action, taking risks where Hope wouldn't. You mellow her down. You let her remember what fun could be. Yeah, you're an idiot but I think Hope needs a little foolishness to cancel out her no-nonsense philosophy." Hank gave Scott what the former hoped was a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "Hope and I are more alike than she'd care to admit. She's all work, and no play. She gives herself a hard time whenever she feels she's slacking off. But you show her that it's okay to let loose once in a while. You ground her, Scott. And you should know something: Hope hasn't laughed this much since she was 7 years old. And that's all _your_ doing."

"Oh, well, I—" Scott stammered, "Well, you should've led with that. "

Hank chuckled. "Was that the talk you were looking for?"

Scott nodded. "A little something like that, yeah."

It turned out a little pep talk was all Scott needed to bypass the lock down. With the two out of the doll house, they climbed back in the car, reverted to normal size, and then sat down for a beer in the kitchen.

...

Not a word was said about the Doll House incident when the girls came back.

And definitely none was mentioned about the proposal.

Hope kissed both men on the cheek and dragged Scott back with her to the car, saying it was time to go or they'll be late for their dinner reservation.

"Scott?" Hank called just as the couple was heading out.

"Go ahead," said Hope. "I'll go wait for you in the car."

Scott smiled gratefully before turning back to Hank. "Yeah?"

Hank dug his hands in his pockets, a little shy to begin. He was never good at all this heart-to-heart bullshit. "I'd like to apologize if I ever... came off as unwelcoming to you. It's... Hope says it's my resting bitch personality, whatever that means. But I appreciate what you do, Scott, not just for the world but for my family."

"Gee, thanks, Hank," Scott said, genuinely surprised and grateful for the compliment. "That really means a lot. And two compliments in one day? We should get stuck in doll houses together, right?"

"You're still full of shit."

"And we're back to the old Hank." Scott patted Hank's cheek and gave him a grin, pointing at him. "But I know your secret. You're just a real softy. Maybe you need a little more Scott in your life too, Hank."

Hank shook his head. "I'm really okay with the amount of Scott I get on a daily basis."

Scott laughed and waved goodbye.

"Oh, and Scott? Good luck."

Later in the car, Hope glanced over at her partner. "What was that about?"

"I think he likes me."

Hope laughed with a shake of her head. "Oh, Scott, he's always liked you. Admired you even. He wouldn't have let you be Ant-Man let alone date me if he didn't."

"Wait. What do you mean he let me date you? He _let_ me?"


End file.
